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Lululemon Athletica Inc. founder Chip Wilson pushed his company into the spotlight again yesterday, criticizing members of his own board of directors for putting short-term gain ahead of brand integrity.

In a startling personal press release issued Wednesday morning before the company’s annual general meeting in Vancouver, Wilson said he voted against the election of board members Michael Casey and RoAnn Costin.

Casey is a former Starbucks executive who became chairman of the board after Wilson resigned in December. Costin is president of a private Boston-based equity company that focuses on investing in early and expansion-stage consumer product and retailing companies.

“While I am excited about the new management team that I helped put in place, I am concerned that the board is not aligned with the core values of product and innovation on which lululemon was founded and on which the company thrived,” Wilson wrote in his release.

“I have found a palpable imbalance in board representation, which is heavily weighted towards short-term results at the expense of product, culture and brand and longer-term corporate goals. I believe this is impacting the company’s prospects. My vote today sends a signal to the financial community that the company must address this imbalance if lululemon is to fully recover.”

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Casey and Costin were elected despite his protest.

The lululemon board responded to Wilson’s allegations by saying board members are in fact, aligned with the company’s core values and are working to strengthen the company’s foundation, focus on innovation, and accelerate controlled global expansion.

Although dissention is not uncommon among company boards of directors, it is unusual for it to take place so publicly, said Karin Schnarr, an instructor of strategy at the Ivey Business School at Western University.

“In some cases boards will actually bring in ombudspeople to help sort out the conflict. What is much more rare is seeing this type of disagreement spill over into the media,” she said.

She pointed to the public battle over organizational direction at Disney in the mid 2000s as an example of a drawn out conflict that hurt shareholder value.

“This type of in-board fighting takes the attention of the board and senior management away from completely focusing on moving the company forward,” said Schnarr.

“The lululemon board needs to find a way to bring Mr. Wilson back into the fold, or risk an ongoing public relations campaign which I believe in the long run to only be bad news for investors.”

Wilson is a 27-per-cent shareholder in the company.

Lululemon is scheduled to issue first-quarter results on Thursday.

Wilson said he was asked by the board last year to return from Australia to help the company recover from an embarrassing and expensive product recall of pants that were too sheer.

He said he has since worked to focus the company’s efforts on product and innovation, and oversaw management changes that led to the appointment of a new head of product quality and a new chief executive officer, Laurent Potdevin.

Andrew Burns, an analyst at D. A. Davidson & Co. in Portland, Or., said lululemon has taken significant steps since the problems last year.

“I struggle to see the merit of his comments,” said Burns.

While Lululemon is still a volatile stock, Burns said he believes the company has the potential to stabilize its financial results later this year.

“They're plucking away on their turnaround strategy and need a couple more quarters to see if it works or not,” he said.

Shares of the company have been steadily sinking over the past year, and are down more than 40 per cent from their 52-week high of $77.75 (U.S.) on the Nasdaq in early October. They closed down $1.18 at $44.30 (U.S.) on Wednesday.

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